Sensex Gains 661 Points, Nifty Back Above 14,500

The domestic equities bounced back led by the buying spree seen across the Banking and Financial stocks that helped Sensex close higher by 660.68 points at 48,544.06, and the Nifty-50 index at 14,504.80, up 194 points on April 13.

The 30-share pack marked major gains in shares of M&M (+7.81 per cent), Bajaj Finserv (+6.43 per cent), and Bajaj Finance (+4.76 per cent). Overall, 23 shares advanced in the Sensex and led the index to reach its day's high of 48,627.43.

Market investors also cheered the Centre's approval for emergency use of the foreign-made vaccines to boost the vaccination drive in the country amid a surge of infections and to meet the supply capacity.

"Bulls regained the momentum in afternoon trade as the see-saw battle between the Virus & Vaccine tilted towards the latter with the approval of the third vaccine", said S Ranganathan of LKP Securities.

Among the sectors, except for Pharma and IT, all other sectors closed with gains on buying interest from the traders and investors. The Auto and PSU Bank gained over four per cent. Tata Motors (+5.69 per cent), Motherson Sumi (+5.43 per cent) led the auto pack, while Bank of India and Central Bank gained over seven per cent each in the PSU Bank space.

In-line with the key indices, the broader markets outperformed as well as the BSE Smallcap and Midcap index surged 1.2-1.4 per cent in the day's session. IDBI Bank and Federal Bank surged the most in the Midcap pack on Tuesday. Shares of IDBI Bank closed higher by 9.62 per at Rs 37.05 after several reports hinted about the Union Cabinet keeping a proposal to divest the government's 45.5 per cent stake in the bank. 

Further, the government will also consult LIC (Life Insurance Corporation) before the stake sale process as LIC holds a 49.2 per cent stake in the bank, a report said.

However, a decline in shares of Dr. Reddy's Labs, TCS, and Tech Mahindra restricted the key indices to bounce even higher and break the upper-level resistance zones, said experts.

In the overall market breadth, around 1900 shares posted gains, 915 shares slipped red, and 176 shares closed unchanged.

In the IPO market, G R Infraprojects filed their DRHP (draft red herring prospectus) with market regulator SEBI on Tuesday.

Markets will remain closed on April 14 on account of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Jayanti.